We slept much better last night, no delivery men to disturb us! Got up at 7.30am and left to do the tourist bit of Geraldton around 9.30am, we enjoyed the slower start to the day.
There seems to be a lot of new development going on in town – we presume it is money from the mining industry. I digress but on that note, we have both been struck by the anti federal government sentiment here in WA, in the papers and on the ABC radio – it is very strong. We have not seen it like that in other states of Australia before, again we presume it has something to do with the numbers of people working in the mining industry.
Anyhow, we had a lovely day. First we went to visit the HMAS Sydney II Memorial. It played tribute to the 645 men that were lost in battle with a German raider off the coast of WA in Nov 1941. It was a lovely memorial and it overlooked Geraldton.
Then we drove to the little town of Greenough, 20km south of Geraldton. It is a Historic settlement from the 1850’s, it has been very well restored and maintained. We had an enjoyable hour doing a self guided tour with a brochure. I don’t think I have ever seen such a well preserved large number of older buildings in Australia, it was impressive.
Dante, we went in the old school building and they had some exams from 1898 there for grade 5 students, so we got a copy and will show you when we get home. Most of it is a bit tricky because you don’t study it at school anymore, but you will find it very interesting. Fortunately we have a copy of the answers as well 🙂
On the way back into town we stopped off at an olive farm and bought some oil, went to the Hampton Arms Inn built in 1863, there is a lovely bar area, but most of the building has been taken over by 30,000 rare and out of print books – couldn’t help myself I bought one! (yes I know only one, I refrained from looking after I found one!) Then one last stop, to photograph the leaning trees. The horizontal trunks of the Red River Gum are caused by the southerly winds – check out the photo which hopefully will go up tonight!
In town we went to the Point Moor lighthouse, built in 1878, 34 metres high, Greg should be telling you about this. Evidently lighthouses are normally built of bricks but this is made of cast iron! Who knew!! Greg did!! He is in his element over here, he knows so much about life in the west! Tis another world to me! But I am being enlightened 🙂
On our way back to the caravan Greg found a fresh fish shop, we left a bit of money there!! We got a little 450gm crayfish for lunch, some scallops which Greg is cooking now for tea, some green prawns which are smelling delicious– a curry in the making – we have masterchef in the kitchen and we got a couple of meals of fresh trevalli and some marinated chilli mussels.
Anyhow to report back the cray was yummy.
We headed back out and visited the Art gallery which had the National Photographic Portraits exhibitions – we couldn’t believe our luck, we saw it a few years ago in Canberra. Was excellent – really enjoyed it.
Then it was off to the St Francis Xavier Cathedral, a magnificent building from the outside – even though it was built in stages and from different styles. I thought the inside was spoilt somewhat by the orange and white striped painting that covered a lot of the walls. It was lovely if you could overlook that.
After our yummy dinner which is nearly ready, I am going to read a bit more of my book. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, Karlien we are going to visit the Hutt River Province on the way up to Carnarvon where we will spend the night.
Dinner awaits, cheers!
Pictures for New Norcia and Geraldton will be posted very soon 🙂
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